This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: On Wednesday, along Edgewood Street in downtown Atlanta, 80-foot-sections of steel rail were lowered into trenches in the street. It was the first section of rail for Atlanta Streetcar, following a process that took 10 years and millions of dollars.

The first rails went into the historic Martin Luther King district of Atlanta and, once complete, will feature an east-west line with 2.6 miles of rail.

A modern streetcar line in St. Louis could spur an estimated $540 million in development in its first five years of operation, and more than $2 billion over 20 years, according to a draft feasibility study paid for by the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis.

There usually isn't much of a market for old streetcars, many of which were built in the 1920s. And the ones you can find are usually in pretty bad shape.

So when officials from the Loop Trolley project got a tip that five well-maintained cars were sitting in storage in Seattle, they headed west to investigate - and liked what they saw, said project manager Doug Campion.

"The fact that it's a full fleet, my goodness," Campion said. "This could be very good for us, very helpful."